Where do born again churches put the Sunday offerings?
Rodney Muhumuza
Sunday Monitor
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/insights/Where_do_born_again_churches_put_the_Sunday_offerings.shtml
Insights | December 16, 2007
Many Pentecostal preachers could be diverting cash and other
donations to personal use. In the American case, as in Uganda,
preachers’ lavish lifestyles, flamboyance and sometimes deceptive prosperity sermons continue to make them fair game for critics
KAMPALA
American televangelists Benny Hinn and Creflo Dollar are among four international preachers now on the spot over their failure to readily provide information that would be used in a federal inquiry into possible corruption within their ministries.
Both Hinn and Dollar were in Uganda a few months ago, and many Ugandans religiously watch their television shows. Chuck Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa who has called for the probe, made his intentions clear in letters he sent to the televangelists on November 5, giving them at least four weeks within which to reply.
“I’m following up on complaints from the public and news coverage regarding certain practices at six ministries. The allegations involve governing boards that aren’t independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces,” Grassley said in a statement posted on his Web site.
“I don’t want to conclude that there’s a problem, but I have an obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with the tax code."
The lawmaker sent out long questionnaires to the six ministries, asking them to provide audited financial statements, compensation reports, records for ministry jet travel, and other documents. It turned out that the December 6 deadline was beaten by only the ministries of Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland, with the other preachers—Dollar, Hinn, Eddie Long and Randy White--either questioning the senator’s motive or asking for more time.
It is now a waiting game: Grassley could seek the backing of the majority of senators on the Finance Committee, on which he is the ranking member, to authorise subpoenas or call for hearings, potentially leading to very damaging revelations.
But Ugandan observers say that while the American story is on a larger and much more complicated scale, the basic similarities are not hard to see, most especially the suspicion that many Pentecostal preachers here are diverting cash and other donations to personal use.
In the American case, as in Uganda, preachers’ lavish lifestyles, flamboyance and sometimes deceptive prosperity sermons continue to make them fair game for critics.
Mr Solomon Male, a Kampala pastor who is known for his exposes on impropriety in the Pentecostals, says that churches for the balokole (born again Christians), despite making a lot of money, have boards that are not independent and members who are loyal to the pastors.
“Many of these churches have dummy boards. They handpick anybody to sit on their boards,” Male said in an interview last Tuesday, adding: “The pastors are not accountable to anybody.”
Most, if not all, of the local pastors preach that there is no limit to recruiting warriors for Christ, and churchgoers are normally encouraged to give as much as they can. But while congregations are given only general accounts of how and when the collections are to be spent, there are no tales of churchgoers asking for accountability because, as the pastors like to say, money will forever be needed to complete “God’s work”.
While the overall strategy may be brilliant -- ultimate accountability is purportedly made to God, the pastors insist -- the tactics have sometimes been controversial. In some ministries, notably the church of the Kampala prophetess Imelda Namutebi, churchgoers, long discouraged from offering coins, are expected to drop high denomination notes in offertory bags. And bullion vans seen outside Kampala churches on Sundays leave no doubt that huge sums are collected.
Yet it is difficult to know how many of these religious non profit organisations account to their benefactors or congregations.
Mr Martin Sempa, a senior pastor at Makerere Community Church, says there are some dubious pastors who have added “too much drama” to the character of the local Pentecostal community.
“There are two kinds of pastors: those who exist to create a name and wealth and those who exist to serve God and the people,” Sempa said. “But the bad ones have greater publicity.”
In recent times, local pastors have attracted a bad press, facing accusations that range from trickery to defilement, but there has been no public scrutiny of their financial dealings. A spokesman for the Uganda Revenue Authority, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the subject, said the agency has been “trying to sensitise churches, as they think that all things to do with a church are not to be taxed”.
“They don’t pay taxes apart from Pay-As-You-Earn if they are employing people. But they have to pay tax if they engage in any business activity,” he added. The question is: Do they?
Some city pastors are known to have companies, most particularly printing presses, which, in addition to making money for their ministries, also churn out the money envelopes used during services or the flyers that invite the faithful to miracle bonanzas “where they are expected to give”, according to Male.
Critics of the local Pentecostals also find fault with the alleged reinvention of the phrase “sowing a seed”, especially as some prominent pastors have led their congregations into giving away so much in the sometimes misplaced hope of receiving miracles.
Mr Sempa admitted that there were cases of “abuse of power, while Mr Male spoke of incidents where pastors remind their audiences that they can only reap in dollars if they sow in a similar currency.
“In that case, the minimum amount of shillings that someone would need to change at a forex bureau is Shs10,000,” Male said. “For a big church, if about 2,000 give that amount on average, that is a lot of money every week.”
It has never been in doubt that many of the revivalist churches make a lot of money through just Sunday collections, and a lot more through countless fundraisers.
Maracha MP Alex Onzima, who sits on the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee of the 8th Parliament, said they would only be concerned if the pastors were using the donations in a way that endangers national security, and not if the funds are being used to build lavish homes.
Rubanda West MP Henry Banyenzaki, who sits on the Finance Committee, said Parliament would only investigate if a complainant “presents a petition on the [bad] conduct of pastors”. But no complaint has come through, he said.
Interestingly, some of issues Senator Grassley had with the six televangelists are not far removed from what is happening with Ugandan pastors. In his letter to Randy and Paula White of Without Walls International Church, the lawmaker asked the preachers to confirm that they gave Bishop T. D Jakes a Bentley Convertible as a gift and to “explain the tax-exempt purpose of the gift” if it was purchased by a tax-exempt entity.
Some Ugandan pastors have been reported to give car and cash gifts to colleagues whose loyalty they wish to hold. Mr Robert Kayanja, for example, gave $10,000 to Meyer when she visited Uganda recently, while Namutebi donated a luxury car to Mr Joseph Serwadda, another of the prominent Kampala pastors.
Critics at the time said the donation to Meyer was immoral as Kayanja failed to appreciate that there were needy people in his community who needed the money much more. Meyer runs a $124-million-a-year empire.
“Meyer has never apologised for her financial success.
In the 2003 series, Meyer said everything she has — the $10 million corporate jet, her $2 million home, her family's fleet of fancy cars — were blessings straight from God,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on November 11. “Meyer preaches the prosperity gospel and uses blunt pitches to get her followers to open their wallets.”
But even when local pastors have been in conflict, which happens often, the results have been a spectacle. In August, for example, Moses Sekatawa, a Kampala pastor, was involved in a nasty conflict with the ministry of Joseph Serwadda, whose wife he accused of grabbing a donated car that he said was originally meant for him.
“Pastor Freda Serwadda refused to release the vehicle to me,” Sekatawa said in a letter sent to the National Fellowship of Born Again Pentecostal Churches of Uganda (NAFBAPC), an umbrella organisation that brings together Pentecostal churches.
“I am always at pains trying to conceal the obvious truth so as not to tarnish her name whenever any of our church members ask me why they do not see me driving the vehicle I testified about.”
Sekatawa later confirmed that he had given up the car, a Toyota Liteace Station Wagon, by accepting a compensation fee of $2,000 from the Serwaddas. (Serwadda refused to comment, requesting for more time to study all the issues at hand).
Many more donations and other bizarre transactions go unreported, as there are at least 20,000 churches for the Pentecostals spread all over Uganda. Only about 1,020 subscribe to NAFBAPC, an association that does not have the mandate to regulate its members. In some cases, it has failed to investigate and arbitrate even those cases where there is smoking gun evidence of wrongdoing.
Officials at NAFBAPC insist there should be an independent agency that regulates religious organisations now that they are a force to be reckoned with.
Most Pentecostal churches register with the NGO Board at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Mr Warren Nyamugasira, the executive director of the NGO Forum, an umbrella organisation that has some churches within its ranks, said that while there are codes of conduct that would mandate the association to check for possible wrongdoing, “we have not received any complaints”.
He also said the NGO Forum was considering developing a code of conduct that “encompasses even those [NGOs] that are not our members”.
